July 31, 2012

This morning’s run was less about training and more about exorcising all the junk I’ve consumed in the past four days. I was supposed to go to the track and do 1600-meter repeats at half marathon pace, but I just kind of laughed that off and did a sluggish lap around my 7.2-mile loop instead.

My right foot felt a little numb after working the pedals for almost 1,600 miles in four days (I don’t trust cruise control), but it loosened up about halfway through the run. There were some other weird aches that had to be worked out, and some sunburn on a part of my upper back that is normally covered by my sports bra but was exposed by the tank tops I wore to the race track this weekend. It was also really humid, which I had gotten used to not having to deal with that quickly.

Anyway, I finished the run without too much grumbling, believe it or not, and then did some stretching to finish up. I felt much closer to normal after I’d worked out.

Now, to recap my long weekend since my last post.

Friday morning, I got up very early and ran my 4.5-mile loop. It was early enough I had to use my headlamp for the first time since the winter. The sky had mostly lightened up by the time I got done.

We loaded up the rental car, a 2012 Toyota Camry, and headed to Mike’s parents’ house to pick up him and his brother, Keith. When we got there, we found out Mike and I had a little miscommunication, and we were supposed to pick them up at Mike’s house, which required some backtracking. We finally got to Mike’s house, ate the big breakfast he had made for us, drove to his parents’ house so he could drop off his dog and were on the road to Indianapolis around 9:30 a.m.

We expected it to take about 11 hours to get to Indy. Thanks to a 90-minute traffic jam in Ohio, it took a lot longer. Other than that, the ride was uneventful, and we got to our hotel on the southern outskirts of the city around 9:45 p.m.

After we checked in, we drove to a bar near the hotel that claimed to keep more than 500 beers in stock. I had a wheat ale from a local brewery and scarfed down my dinner. As soon as I was done eating, the long day caught up with me, and I just wanted to go to bed. We stopped at a liquor store so the guys, who had all napped part of the way to Indy, could get something to drink to keep their little party going back at the hotel.

I fell asleep around 1:30 a.m., listening to my travel companions making a lot of noise outside the room, and waiting for the hotel management to come tell us we had to pack up and leave because the other guests were complaining.

That didn’t happen though. I woke up around 7:30 a.m. and wanted to go for a run. I figured I had all the time in the world before the other three woke up, so I drove into downtown Indy to run around and do some sightseeing.

Indy has a “cultural trail” mapped out through its downtown area, that passes some monuments, the state capitol house, a huge park and other points of interest. I took my iPhone with me so I could try to follow it, and so I could take some pictures along the way. I parked at the zoo and soon ran right into this:

Of course there was a Color Run in Indy the one day of my life I wanted to run through there. The Color Run is a national series of 5K races. Everyone is supposed to wear white, and volunteers throw a corn starch powder, dyed different colors, at five points along the course. The point is to get as covered in this colored starch as possible. The runs are very popular, which meant there were thousands of runners in Indy.

I’m signed up for one in D.C. later this year. My friend Laura wants to try a 5K and got a bunch of friends to do the D.C. Color Run. Our team name is Shore Hate Running, haha.

Anyway, when I passed through the park, most of the runners were off on the course somewhere. I skirted around the finish line area and went on my way.

Downtown Indy is very runner-friendly, I soon found. There were nice, wide sidewalks to run on, including this 1.5-mile stretch along a canal that runs through the city:

There were plenty of memorials:

Indiana World War Memorial

(After I took this picture and started running again, a passerby commented he’d never seen a running photographer before, haha.)

And I saw this really cool Dunkin’ Donuts:

After some research, I’m a little disappointed to find out this is actually a relatively new location (opened in 2008) that was simply designed to look retro. Still looks cool though.

Getting back to my car was a little more difficult. By this time, most of the runners had either finished or were nearly back to the finish area.

A stream of color-coated runners making their way to the finish, where they were about to get blasted by a lot more color.

When I got back to the zoo parking lot, I checked the app on my phone that had been tracking my run, and found I had covered about 6.1 miles. It was a good way to see the city.

I stopped for an iced coffee on my way back to the hotel. After everyone was awake and showered, we headed to the track for the first time.

On the way there, we stopped at a White Castle, since none of us had ever eaten at one before. I got the double cheeseburger sliders. They were pretty damn greasy. They were OK, but I really don’t understand why an entire movie was made about two stoners trying to get to a White Castle just to eat those.

At the track, we tried to find free parking, but, after driving around for a quite a while, we eventually gave up and just parked in a $10 lot, the cheapest we could find. It also happened to be as far away as possible from our seats for the Nationwide Series race. It was a long walk.

When we got to the section in which our seats were located, we found that section was not yet open (Sprint Cup qualifying was still happening, which was general admission.) We found seats in the nearest section that was open, and I started working on the beers in our cooler.

Qualifying ended about a half hour before the Nationwide race was to start. Our section was still not open. I asked an attendant when we were going to be allowed to get in our seats. He looked at my ticket and said we could sit in them now — and pointed up.

Upon closer inspection of our tickets, we saw the word “deck.” We got to sit on a platform raised above the highest seats in that section! We could see the cars coming off Turn 4 on their way to the front stretch.

Turns 3 and 4.

Looking down the front stretch.

Downtown Indy in the distance.

Saturday was one of those days the beer was going down like water, and I was pretty lit by the time the race was over. We ate some egg rolls on the way out of the track, and I managed to walk all the way back to the car, but as soon as we got back in the car, I was out like a light. Clark, who hadn’t felt like drinking that afternoon since he was still a little hungover from the night before, drove us back to the hotel.

I woke up around midnight and was pretty hungry, so we all went to the Waffle House conveniently connected to our hotel. I had two huge waffles covered in butter, syrup and chocolate chips. It hit the spot.

Sunday morning, I actually felt OK, much to my surprise. Clark and I got up early, showered and waited for the other two to wake up. We had brought our little grill, a couple of coolers and some chairs, expecting to tailgate before the race. But we wound up leaving the hotel too late in the morning to have time for that.

On the way to the track, we found out Indiana does not allow alcohol sales on Sundays. This was a problem. Between the four of us, we only had about six cans of beer left. (We had some bottled stuff left, but you can’t take glass into the stands.)

It was my turn to not really feel like drinking, so I wasn’t too concerned about the whole thing. We finished off the bottled stuff in the parking lot before walking into the track.

Our seats for Sunday’s race were right along the front stretch, just beyond the start/finish line. They were even better than Saturday’s seats had been.

Looking down the front stretch toward Turn 4.

Looking down toward Turn 1.

Bobby Labonte’s car waiting on the grid before the start of the race.

Green flag to start the race!

Unfortunately, Jimmie Johnson had to go and win the race, but I didn’t let that ruin the whole experience for me. It was a really cool track to see in person. It was built in 1909, and hosted the first Indianapolis 500 two years later, so you can just feel the history oozing out of the place.

And even though it was Johnson kissing the bricks after winning, it was most likely the only time I will see that tradition live, so I got some pictures of it.

Johnson is the third guy to the right of the pole. His wife is the blonde-haired woman to the right, and the little kid between them is their daughter, who wasn’t too excited about kissing a patch of bricks that had been run over by cars all day.

I did manage to get one group shot of us at the track, after the race had ended:

Mike, Clark, me and Keith.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway easily gets the award for best traffic management. It’s a huge place that holds a ton of people, but we didn’t have to wait in traffic at all. We went downtown, where we had dinner at a sushi restaurant and then hung out at a bar until it closed at 11 p.m. I had one more beer, just because of the name. It was called Buttface Amber Ale. How could I resist?

The next morning, I was up early again. I wanted to get in a few miles before we left. But when I went outside at 6 a.m., it was still pitch black! I guess it was because we were right on the edge of the eastern time zone there. It didn’t lighten up until it was too late for me to run, so I just scrapped it.

We left Indy around 7:45 a.m. I didn’t realize how tired I was until I was driving, unfortunately. And everyone else in the car was fast asleep, which made me feel even more tired. The highway through Indiana and Ohio was surrounded by pretty much nothing, and all the music I had was whatever I could find on the local FM radio stations, so I was having a rough time for a while there. I stopped at a Tim Horton’s in Ohio (another fast food chain restaurant I can check off the list!) and got a big ol’ iced coffee.

Other than that, the drive back was much easier. We dropped off Mike and Keith before 6:30 p.m., picked up Pepper from Clark’s parents’ house, dropped off the rental car and went home.

It was a fun weekend, and now we have to decide which NASCAR track we’re hitting up next year.

One last thing — it’s the last day of July (already!) and I have to do my monthly summary.

Mileage:

Week 1 (July 1-7): 30.8 miles

Week 2 (July 8-14): 44.7

Week 3 (July 15-21): 39.1

Week 4 (July 22-28): 54.3

Week 5 (July 29-31): 7.2

Total: 176.1 miles

If I had actually managed to run those two long runs in the beginning of the month, I would have almost broken 200 miles. Even without those runs, it was still a pretty solid mileage month.

I also ran my fastest 5K of the summer series, and ran another 25K trail race. I would say marathon training is on track.

Except for a 12K in Preston, August is going to be nothing but training miles. This should be my biggest mileage month before the October marathon, and I’ll also be doing the heaviest speed workouts to get ready for the Sept. 2 half marathon in Virginia Beach.

July 26, 2012

This morning, I decided to do the 13-mile long run I would have done this weekend. We’ll be out in Indianapolis for the NASCAR race, and while I’d like to get in a run or two while we’re there, I’d rather not worry about getting in a long run.

I knew it was going to be a tough run this morning because it’s only been a few days since my last long run, which was on hilly trails, and I’ve run every day since. Plus, it was quite a bit warmer and more humid this morning than the last several days.

The first 9 miles or so went OK. I was having some stomach cramping trouble, and I had to stop in the woods and a corn field a couple of times. I don’t know if it was the heat or if I was dehydrated or what, but my stomach was bothering me to some degree just about the whole time, which very rarely happens to me.

About 9 miles in, I just ran out of gas. The last four miles were rough. I had to walk a good chunk of it, and stop in a corn field once more. But there were no shortcuts home at that point, so I had to finish it off.

The end got ugly, but I finished the 13.2-mile loop. Miles in the bank. I did some stretching and gulped some chocolate milk and a lot of water when I got home.

Tonight, Clark and I are picking up our rental car. Early tomorrow morning, we’re meeting Mike and his brother, Keith, at their parents’ house. Mike wants us to get there earlier than originally planned so he can make us breakfast. We are planning to be on the road by 8 a.m. It’s about a 10-hour drive to Indy.

I just found out Bobby Labonte is going to be signing autographs tomorrow afternoon at a Walmart two miles from our hotel. There’s no way we’re going to make it in time though. Damn!

Saturday, the Sprint Cup Series qualifies at 2 p.m., and the Nationwide Series races at 4:30 p.m. Sunday is the main event of course — the Brickyard 400 is at 1 p.m. Actually, the official name is something else, but I’ll always know it as the Brickyard 400. And then we’re driving home Monday.

July 25, 2012

This morning, my calf muscles felt close to normal, so I continued with my training as scheduled.

I started with an easy lap around the 4.5-mile loop. I timed it out of curiosity today. It was a relatively cool morning with decent humidity, so I finished the run in 37:13, an average pace of about 8:16/mile.

When I got back home, I got in the car and went on a search for skim milk that took way too long — every store I tried was still closed, didn’t have skim milk or had gallons of it that were going to expire tomorrow. I finally found a quart that wouldn’t have to be consumed within 24 hours and went home, so Clark and I could eat our cereal for breakfast.

With that taken care of, I went upstairs and did ab exercises, invisible chair-sitting and weight lifting, and finished up with barefoot exercises and some stretching.

This morning I got an email from the race director of the Rosaryville race. I guess a lot of people had run different distances than they had registered for, so their times were listed in the wrong distance. It has since been sorted out and updated.

So now, I am still the first of three runners in the F 20-29 age group, but I was the sixth woman of 30 and 20th overall of 65 finishers.

July 23, 2012

When I worked at Taylor’s Produce, for some reason July 23 was always the day I would notice the date on my watch in the corn field in the morning and think the summer was almost over. Years later, even though I no longer have to go back to school in August, that date still feels like the end is closing in. As much complaining as I’ve done about the heat this summer, it still makes me sad to think it’s going to end.

Anyway, enough moping. This past weekend was very un-summery, as far as weather goes, and while it probably made for some crappy beach conditions, it was perfect for running. I took full advantage of it.

Friday night, Clark and Dave went to a tractor pull. That’s not really my thing, so I stayed home with Pepper and did stuff I probably wouldn’t have had Clark been home — I had sushi for dinner, which upset his stomach the last time he ate it, and watched several episodes of “Ghost Adventures” on the Travel Channel, which isn’t really his thing. Pepper and I had a nice evening together.

Saturday morning, I had a marathon goal pace run scheduled. It was cool and overcast outside, so I took my sweet time getting out there. When I finally did, I ran the first mile easy to warm up, and then sped up to what felt like just under 8:00/mile for a number of miles yet to be determined.

Man that pace felt easy in that nice weather! I wound up running for time instead of distance, since I’m not positive on the mile markers, and cruised for 48 minutes. When I mapped it out, I had covered 6.2 miles, so I ran an average pace of 7:44/mile, which is faster than my marathon goal pace. I had about a mile left to get home, so I ran it at an easier pace to cool down. I did some yoga at home to stretch out in preparation for the trail race the next day.

I packed up my stuff for the race and drove up to Meredith’s house. Clark decided to stay home with Pepper, so it was just me. I picked up some beers on the way to Meredith’s, and we spent the evening drinking, eating some stuff I knew I shouldn’t have been eating since I had a long way to run in the morning and staying up later than I should have. But it was fun, and even though I didn’t feel 100 percent awesome when I got up before 5:30 a.m., I regret nothing, haha.

I left Meredith’s around 6 a.m. and drove to Upper Marlboro, stopping for a big bottle of water and a Clif Bar on the way. The Clif Bar was supposed to be breakfast, but I just wasn’t hungry. I kept putting off eating it, and before I knew it, I was following a line of cars into Rosaryville State Park.

I followed those cars all the way to the wrong parking lot, and wondered if that was how the race was going to go, haha. We all got turned around and found the correct parking lot. I had to park a ways from the pavilion where they were handing out bibs. I hiked over there, got in line to find out my bib number and then got in another line to get my timing chip and bib.

While I appreciate chip timing, I dislike the non-disposable chips. If you lose it or forget to turn it in after the race, you get charged. In this case, it would have been $30 to replace it, which isn’t much less than it cost to register for the race. I much prefer the races that either use the disposable chips, or just pull tags off bibs and go by gun time. This race was small enough, and the finishers spread out enough, that I think they could have gotten by without chips.

I found my two friends who were also running the race. Melissa, who had said before she was doing the 25K, had decided to start with the 50K runners instead and just see if she could finish it. Jen had signed up for the 50K.

I hurried back to my car to get ready for the race. I unlaced my right shoe halfway down and tied the chip into my laces there, instead of just tying it into where I tie the laces at the top, to make sure it wasn’t going anywhere, even if my shoe came untied (which it did, so I was really happy I’d taken the extra time to do that.)

I filled my water bottle, made sure my salt caps and a tube of ChapStick were in the pouch, took off my shirt, pinned the bib to my sports bra, pulled my hat on my head and made my way back to the start, in time to see off the 50K runners.

The 25K runners had about another 15 minutes to wait before the start of our race. I hit the bathroom one last time and then hung around the start line and waited.

It had rained quite a bit the day before this race. Melissa, who had also run North Face, had worried Rosaryville was going to be a repeat of the extreme mud we’d had to run through. I didn’t think that was going to be the case. While we’d had a steady rain Saturday, it was nothing like the severe storms that had passed through well into the night before North Face. Also, the parts of the North Face course that were the worst were in a flood plain along the Potomac River, and we hadn’t been in a bad drought for weeks prior to the rain. Still, a little piece of me was worried she was right. I really have no desire to ever run in mud like that again.

Around 7:30 a.m., the 25K runners gathered at the start and were let go. We ran down a grassy hill, past our parked cars, down a paved road a short way and then turned on to the trail loop.

Much to my relief, the trails were in really good shape. There was the random small mud puddle here and there, but I can count on one hand the number of times I actually had to step in a little mud.

The first few miles of the race, my pace was all over the place. I was pounding the downhills and charging the uphills. There wasn’t much flat in between. The climbs and descents on this course weren’t anything like those on the Bulldog course as far as elevation gain and loss went, but they were relentless, and the trail itself had a lot more roots and rocks and other debris to watch out for.

I kept reminding myself this was supposed to be a training run, not a race, and to back off the pace, because I could feel my calves were already getting tired. About three miles in, I started catching the back of the 50K pack, and while I was trucking up a pretty long uphill, I saw Melissa and Jen walking ahead. I walked with them a short way. Melissa said she’d already twisted her ankle and gone down hard, and she didn’t know how far she was going to be able to run. I wished them both luck and continued up the hill.

A little while later, I ran up on Cassie and Robert, a couple of Marathon Maniacs (it’s a club, and to get in you have to run a certain number of marathons within a certain span of time.) I had first met them at North Face. They were both doing the 50K. We talked a little, mostly about how relieved we were that this was not North Face. Then I took off again.

Pretty soon, I was at the first aid station of the race. I hadn’t drank much of my water in that first section, and I wasn’t hungry, so I just drank a cup of diluted Gatorade and went on my way. Soon after that, I swallowed one of my salt caps.

I was a little lonely for the first mile or so of the next section of the race. A couple of guys passed me, but that was it as far as company went. It felt like a solo training run. I wished Pepper was with me. I think he would have enjoyed that trail.

Soon enough, I finally caught up with some more runners. I passed a couple, but when I drew up behind a guy in a purple shirt, who was following a woman in a blue shirt, I just decided to maintain their pace and run with them.

It turned out to be the best decision I made all day. I followed them all the way to the next aid station. Their pace was perfect, and they had both run those trails before. I enjoyed listening to their conversation (I don’t think they had known each other before this race) and before I knew it, we were emerging from the woods and coming up on the next aid station.

I retied the shoe that had just come undone, refilled my water bottle, drank some diluted Gatorade, ate some potato wedges covered in salt and a handful of animal crackers and got going again. The woman in the blue shirt hadn’t stopped very long and had already left, and the guy in the purple shirt was taking his time at the aid station. I was a little sad our little group was broken up, but oh well. I only had about 5.5 miles left to run and I was feeling great.

We headed back into the woods where we had entered the first time, and reran the first section of the trail loop. I was keeping a steady pace by myself, passing a few runners. Not too far into that section, I heard footsteps pounding up behind me, so I started to step off to the side of the single track to let the faster runner pass. Instead of “on your left,” I heard “No, it’s just me! Keep going!”

It was the guy in the purple shirt! I wasn’t the only one who had preferred running with others!

We ran along, and pretty soon, as we were climbing a switchback, I caught a glimpse of something blue coming back down the switchback on the other side — the woman in the blue shirt! We picked it up and caught up with her, and our threesome ran the rest of that section together.

As we approached the aid station, I thanked my running buddies, who were both doing the 50K, and wished them luck on the rest of their run. When we got to the aid station, they both turned left to do a short out-and-back on the road before getting back on the trail, and I downed one last cup of diluted Gatorade and turned right, to run the final mile back to the finish line.

Remember all that junk I ate at Meredith’s house the night before? I thought I was going to get lucky and get through the whole race without any gut problems. I had made it so far without so much as a rumble.

Well, I wasn’t getting off that easy after all. I had felt the first pangs while still on the trail just before the final aid station, but they went away. As I ran down the road toward the finish, they came back, and with a vengeance. Still, I thought I was going to be able to hang on.

The road ended and I was running down a dirt path through the woods. And there, half a mile from the freaking finish line, the pangs cranked up to emergency levels and I had to duck into the woods and take care of business. Dammit!

No one passed me while I was in the woods. As I started running again, I felt my gut rumble and thought I was going to have to stop again. I slowed to a walk for a few seconds and it went away.

The woods ended and I was running down the path, which had now turned to a very rocky surface that was awkward to run on, through a grassy field. I could see no one ahead of or behind me.

The path made a sharp turn on a downhill and I saw patches of color ahead through some trees lining the grassy field — our parked cars! I was there, I had made it!

I followed the path through an opening in the trees and suddenly had no idea where to go. I could see the finish line in the middle of a field near the pavilion, but there was no indication of how I was supposed to get there, and no one running between me and the finish to show me where to go. I just took the most direct route and hoped I wasn’t disqualifying myself right at the end by screwing it up.

I attracted a few cheers and some clapping from the handful of runners sitting in the pavilion as I crossed the finish line. A volunteer draped a medal around my neck and I unlaced my right shoe so I could safely deposit the precious timing chip in the timing company’s box.

My calves were a little sore, but overall I wasn’t too worn out from the run. I walked to my car, traded my soaking wet shoes and socks for flip flops and walked back to the pavilion, where they had a bunch of food for the runners. I ate whatever I could get my hands on, which I think included a veggie burger. It tasted like ketchup and mustard to me.

As I was shoveling food in my face, someone from the timing company decided to announce the 25K winners. They gave little awards to the overall male and female winners. They didn’t buy awards to give to age group winners, since there were four races and therefore a lot of age group winners, but they announced those too. What do you know, I won the F 20-29 age group!

My official time was 2:44:32, a 3-minute PR.

I just got an email from the race director, informing me I was first of a whopping three runners in my age group, haha. I was also the sixth of 30 women to finish, and 20th overall of 65 total runners.

It was a great training run, and a wonderful change of scenery from my usual flat, paved routes.

My medal and bib. I feel like I should take a Sharpie and circle the “25K” distance so no one thinks I ran the 50K.

My 110s had to hang out on the steps overnight to dry out. They still stink though.

I had originally planned to hang around for Melissa and Jen’s finishes, but as I was sitting there, already bored, I realized it was probably going to be a good few more hours before they came in. It takes a while to run 31 miles of trail anyway, and when you twist an ankle 3 miles in, it’s going to take longer.

I got home around 1:30 p.m., and Clark and I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the house and taking care of the yard, which had been getting a little shaggy to say the least.

This morning, I was a little sore in my calves and my upper body, I guess from using my arms to balance, but I did my workout anyway. I ran my 4.5-mile loop first, and then I did some ab exercises, invisible chair-sitting, weight lifting and barefoot exercises.

July 20, 2012

This morning, I was getting ready to go to the trail for a short run when I noticed Pepper was acting a little odd.

It’s been a while since he acted like this, so it took me a couple of minutes to figure out what his problem was. After he sniffed my clothes and the shoes I pulled out of the closet and realized they were for running, which meant I was going running, he started racing around the house at top speed, yelping. Every time he’d go flying by me, he would yelp right at me.

He wanted to go running with me!

I grabbed his leash off the shelf in the utility room and he really went insane. As soon as I opened the door, he burst out of it and did some more circles at top speed out in the yard while I opened the garage. He came bounding in the garage as soon as I got it open and started yelping again, waiting for me to open the car door for him.

It was nice to see he’d finally missed running. I definitely missed running with him.

We went to the trail. It was cooler than the last few mornings, but still very humid. The threat of rain is going to hang around all day, though it wasn’t raining when we ran.

We were all alone on the trail. Pepper seemed really happy to be out there. He found a little stick to carry in his mouth and trotted through our 3-mile loop.

It was a nice little run. I did some push-ups and stretching when we got home.

Running plans for the weekend include 8.2 miles tomorrow, including some at goal marathon pace, and the Rosaryville 25K Trail Run, as this week’s long run Sunday.

I’ve gotten two emails in the past 12 hours from the race director, finally giving us all a lot more information than what was on the event website. I’m still a little confused on the course, but it’s hard to really map out a trail run when there’s four different distances going on at the same time. It’s just a training run anyway, so a little extra mileage won’t hurt me if I go off-course.

It looks like the 25K runners are doing two loops of the same course, plus a little mileage to get on the loop after the start and some mileage to get off the loop and to the finish line. We should pass an aid station every 4 to 5 miles. It said we can leave a drop bag at one of the aid stations, but I really don’t think that’s going to be necessary for anyone not doing the 50K.

I’m planning on just taking my handheld and a few salt caps, and eating whatever they’re stocking at the aid stations if I get hungry. I normally wouldn’t take any food with me on a 15.5-mile training run on the road, but this is going to take longer on a trail, and I might want something.

The weather looks like we’re going to get pretty lucky — lower humidity than what we’ve been dealing with, overnight lows in the low 70s and a high in the mid-80s. I was a little worried about this race when I first saw the date. The past two years, I ran a 5K in Lewes this weekend, and both times, it was the absolute hottest weekend of the summer. Last year, we set some records with a heat index near 120. That’s not going to be the case this time, thankfully.

As far as a time goal goes, I’d like to beat my 2:47 from the only other 25K I’ve ever run, the Bulldog 25K in California last August, which shouldn’t be hard. I didn’t have a bad race that day, but it had more than 10 times the elevation gain of the Rosaryville course. That is not an exaggeration — the Rosaryville course shows a total of 305 feet of gain, while the Bulldog course is estimated to have 4,000 feet in gain (and the same in loss, which murdered my quads.) There should be a lot less power hiking and a lot more consistent running this weekend.

Meredith is being kind enough to let me stay at her house the night before the race, since she lives a lot closer to Upper Marlboro than I do. I also agreed to write a short author bio for a book her husband is trying to self-publish, so I can get that knocked out tomorrow night too. Clark and Pepper might go with me.

And, as a bonus, I get to see again two Runner’s World friends Sunday, one who is also doing the 25K and one who is running the 50K. Should be a good weekend.

July 19, 2012

We got a little teaser of a storm last night, just a lot of black clouds, some wind and lightning off in the distance. We didn’t get any rain. It looks like they’re expecting that to come later today and into tomorrow morning.

So that meant this morning was still sunny, hot and muggy when I ran. I did a middle distance easy run around the 7.2-mile loop, with a couple of mile pick-ups thrown in. I ran one mile in 7:20 and another in 7:05. The rest of it, I was just trudging along, feeling my shorts get more and more saturated with sweat as I went. The humidity was pretty high today.

July 18, 2012

This morning, I ran a lap around my 4.5-mile route first. It was about as miserably hot as the day I cut off that attempted 14-miler after 5 miles.

As bad as I feel for the farmers for having to deal with this drought, I do like that there’s a good chance I’m going to find an irrigation system spraying the road somewhere on any run. This morning I got to run through two, one a half-mile in and another just before the 3-mile marker.

I’ve also noticed a lot more drivers this summer stopping their vehicles in the irrigation spray to take advantage of a redneck car wash. Are people getting lazier about washing their cars? I haven’t washed mine in months. I thought I was a slacker, but maybe I’m just part of a trend.

Anyway, I trudged through the run and was so thoroughly drenched by the time I got home I had to put on dry clothes before doing my strength training upstairs. It’s not every day I require a wardrobe change in the middle of a workout.

It was warm but bearable upstairs. I did my push-ups, ab exercises, invisible chair-sitting, weight training, barefoot exercises and stretching.

We’re supposed to get some storms here soon, which should break the heat. I might have another hot run tomorrow morning, but the next few days after that should be more comfortable.

July 17, 2012

We’ve got another couple of days of really hot, humid weather coming up. This morning, when I stepped outside just after 6 a.m. to go to the track to do today’s scheduled speed workout, I knew it wasn’t going to be a good day for running fast. The air was already warm and thick.

But, I completely killed it anyway!

I was supposed to do six 400-meter repeats at 5K pace. The last 5K I ran, I ran at a 6:53/mile pace, which would work out to repeats of about 1:43 each. But I want to run a 5K much faster than that, so I decided to just run my 400s as fast as I could.

I did a mile easy to warm up, and was already pretty sweaty when I started my first repeat. I clicked off the first repeat in 1:38. Not my fastest ever, but pretty good. I hoped I could keep that up for the next five.

I did a recovery lap and then ran the second one in 1:36, which was only a second off my fastest-ever 400 repeat. The heat was bearing down on me, but I tried to ignore it as I jogged my recovery lap and got ready for the third repeat.

As boring as it is to run 24 laps around a track like I did today, I’ve found the monotonous scenery gives me a chance to concentrate harder on my form. I noticed I was leaning back a bit, and sometimes I would find my shoulders tensed too much. I made a conscious effort to correct both of those on the third repeat, and equaled my fastest-ever 400 — 1:35.

So far this was going pretty well!

I jogged the third recovery lap and then ran No. 4 in 1:33, a new fastest-ever for me. I jogged the recovery and then repeated that on the fifth with another 1:33. Just one more to go.

I was pouring sweat, and had to walk a few yards after that fifth repeat, but after jogging the rest of the recovery lap, I ran the sixth one as hard as the rest, and even cranked it up closer to a sprint at the very end.

I hit the button on my watch as I crossed the line and looked down to see 1:31!

I was very pleased with the whole thing. Checking my notes, the last time I ran 400s, I only did four, as I was tapering for the Steamtown Marathon. So that was a shorter workout during a taper on a nice cool October day, and my fastest that time was 1:35. I ran the same or faster four out of six times today.

I put on my iPod and did two more miles easy to cool down, for a total of six miles. At home, I did some stretching.

July 16, 2012

Saturday morning, I ate some breakfast, filled up my water bottle, threw two salt caps in the pouch on the bottle’s hand strap and hit the road, determined to finally do a proper long run for the first time in almost a month.

It wasn’t too hot, the humidity was up there but manageable and the sun only came out intermittently due to patchy cloud cover. I won’t bore you with the details, but I ran my 14.5-mile loop in 2:04:30, an 8:35/mile average pace, and felt pretty damn good when I was done.

It was a big mental boost to finally get my redemption for the failed long run last week and the completely skipped one two weeks ago. I feel like I’m actually training to run a marathon in the fall.

I spent the rest of the day lazing about at home, and in the evening, Clark and I went to my parents’ house for a family dinner to celebrate my twin nephews’ 14th birthday (which is today, by the way), my grandfather’s 80th birthday and my sister’s 19th birthday, which are both this Wednesday.

Sunday morning I went out to do a 7-miler at goal marathon pace. It was warmer than Saturday had been, and much more humid. Instead of running the whole loop at goal pace, I just did a mile easy to warm up, the next three miles a little faster than goal pace (which is 7:54/mile, or a 3:27:00 marathon) and then the final 3.2 at an easy pace again. When I got home, I checked my phone and saw the humidity had been above 90 percent. No wonder I had sweated so much I had to rinse and wring out my shoes, which was a first.

The rest of Sunday was another lazy day. We watched the NASCAR race from New Hampshire. They’re off next week, so the next race is Indy, which, of course, we’re going to see live and in person. We have the tickets for both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races and the hotel booked. I just have to make a rental car reservation today, and we’ll be all set.

This morning, I ran 3 miles on the road first. It was pretty warm and muggy again. As I was approaching my house at the end of the run, a farmer was turning on the irrigation system right across the road. It was spraying on the road at my lane when I got done, so of course I had to stand in it. It felt awesome, as always.

I ate some breakfast and then went upstairs, where I did some push-ups, ab exercises, invisible chair-sitting, weight training and barefoot exercises.